There Are Cops, and then There Are Cops
by Balin Lord of Moria
Summary: Series of drabbles about police officers, the realistic cops of Police Quest, and the macho cops of Hollywood movies and TV.
1. Kim Walters' Protection

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the _Police Quest_ series; I just happen to enjoy writing about its characters.

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**_Kim Walters' Protection_**

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Officer Walters loved the people of Lytton, be they innocent citizens or criminals.

She was a Narcotics detective who wanted to protect all people from being hurt in their everyday lives, and preferred peaceful resolutions to loud and violent ones, though she wouldn't hesitate to use lethal force if truly necessary. That meant even criminals had to be protected from danger whenever possible. She would never dream of getting revenge for any wrong a person could do her.

Kim was so good at it, in fact, that she was once team leader for the protective service unit assigned to protect Mayor Thomas G. Shmuck. Her efforts were outstanding in this field, and she had received a commendation award for her services. Evidently, her superiors believed she was one of the best cops on the force.

Dutiful, upstanding, and mild-mannered, and pure of heart, Kim nonetheless enjoyed the simpler things in life, too, and was quite the fan of the band, Blam, meaning that she knew how to enjoy life, too. Sonny Bonds believed that she was a better police officer than he was.


	2. Olivia's Special Victims

**_Olivia's Special Victims_**

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She was the daughter of a rape victim who abused her as a child. Because of her experience with that heinous sex crime and abuse, Detective Olivia Benson of the Manhattan Special Victims Unit greatly sympathized with and cared for victims of sex crimes, especially if they were women like her. In fact, Olivia tended to favor women over men, and would believe almost anything a rape victim told her, but her partner, Elliot Stabler, was more skeptical sometimes, and this often brought them into conflict with each other.

Detective Benson sometimes even got carried away with her sympathy for women who were sexually abused, putting away a few men forever who were later proved to be innocent. Even so, she wouldn't give up her compassion for hurting women like herself, ever. Stabler thought that Olivia had too soft a heart for her job, but she proved him wrong with her tough skills, and remained a mostly well respected cop.


	3. Laura Gomez's Humility

**_Laura Gomez's Humility_**

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Laura Gomez was a Burglary detective, but her most commendable actions made her seem more fit to be a fireman or a lifeguard. She had once saved a child who was drowning face down in the water while she was jogging off-duty. God knew the child and his mother were so grateful.

Laura, though, didn't want anyone to know her as a celebrity, not even for commendable actions. She just wanted to be a humble cop doing her duty for the good people of Lytton. But she adored people who had a sense of decency and sense of their surroundings, and she told Homicide detective Sonny Bonds that he made a good choice in helping Marie Wilkans find a new life.

To Laura, true heroes were people who, like her, were humble about their job as policemen, because without humility, cops became too egotistic, and that could lead to professional disaster. So she was always humble.


	4. Steve McGarrett's Dedication

**_Steve McGarrett's Dedication_**

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It was the dream of many police officers to work in Hawaii, the Aloha state. It was so beautiful, with its palm trees, warm beaches, and beautiful women in grass skirts or bikinis. But Detective Steve McGarrett wasn't in it for the glamor. No-nonsense, dedicated, and independent-minded, he was one highly intelligent cop, and came through on every case eventually. Every time, he ultimately caught the perpetrator involved in a criminal activity, and told his partner and friend, Danny Williams, to "Book him, Danno." Stopping crime was what motivated him.

Of course, his job wasn't as smooth as that of, say, Sergeant Joe Friday. Unlike Friday, he had to use his gun more often, and was framed for many crimes he didn't commit, like murder, extortion, and grand theft art. However, with his skills and his quick-thinking, McGarrett nonetheless got through every attempt on his life and his career with flying colors, and perhaps was as good as Friday at being like a genuine police officer.


	5. James Morgan's Clairvoyance

**_James Morgan's Clairvoyance_**

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Lieutenant Morgan always had a way of knowing what was going to happen before it did. That was what made him famous as a cop. When Sonny Bonds was assigned to the Hoffman and Bains cases, even though Morgan always told Bonds to do the job of finding evidence and leads for the case, somehow he always knew what Bonds was going to come up with. He was always one step ahead of his detective, and two steps ahead of the criminals.

As a result, he got the second largest amount of credit after Bonds for bringing the Death Angel to justice, and many people admired him, including Bonds. Curiously, though, Lt. Morgan was not on Bains' hit list of revenge when the latter escaped from jail and stalked the people who were responsible for putting him in prison. Some cops wondered if Morgan had foreseen that, too, because after the Bains case was solved, he retired and moved far away from Lytton, as if looking for safety. They hoped their gallant Narcotics lieutenant hadn't gotten a smattering of cowardice in him.


	6. Mario Gelepsi's Passion

**_Mario Gelepsi's Passion_**

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A son of some Italian immigrants to America, Mario was a man everybody thought couldn't handle the job of being an American policeman. But he amazed them all with his ability to solve crimes while out on patrol. In fact, he was commended for finding a total of eleven stolen vehicles over a twelve month period.

He also had passionate emotions, which meant that sometimes he had a short temper, and this had gotten him in trouble on an least one occasion with Internal Affairs. His emotions also made him openly complain about messy situations during his job, like when he found a bloody body inside a parked car, or was spooked by a deadly killer who just tried to kill a fellow cop, or many other things. Nonetheless, he continued to insist that he could get the job done, and he continued to impress his superiors and his critics.


	7. Crass and Brash Alex Foley

**_Crass and Brash Alex Foley_**

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There never was a police officer quite like him. Alex Foley, the crass and brash, always had a wisecrack for every situation. His sense of humor could create a feeling of simultaneous laughter and passion, so determined he was to show that a street-wise cop, and a black cop at that, could solve a case against the most deadly crooks. And he often got his way, too, because nobody could say no to such an amused face, except perhaps his Chief of Police.

Together with his cop buddies on the Beverly Hills Police Force, John Taggart and Billy Rosewood, Foley fought dirty with drug runners and "alphabet crime" criminals, but unlike Dirty Harry, he retained his humor in even the worst of situations, always shooting the bad guys and rescuing the girls and the little ones with a laugh. His wisecracks and brash ways of handling police work couldn't be more different from the studious cops of the LPD.


	8. Kathy Rhodes' Faith

**_Kathy Rhodes' Faith_**

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Kathy was a cop who served in the Vice unit, and her appreciation of it showed. She was one of the most religious Christians on the Lytton Police Force, and it gave her pleasure to work in this department, because she wanted to stop as many moral crimes as she could, believing that it was the way she was meant to serve God. And she was so good at it that her superiors seldom transferred her, and then only briefly.

As a Vice detective, Kathy was determined to stop people from committing more crimes that could hurt the morals and ethics of Lytton's citizens, like illegal gambling, prostitution, drug consumption, and alcohol consumption. She commented once that Officer Sonny Bonds would've made a great Vice detective because of the way he took down the Death Angel twice. Her faith in God and Jesus was such that she believed the vices and sins of mankind could be stopped and heaven on earth would be achieved. Amen.


	9. Harry Callahan, the Dirtiest Cop Ever

**_Harry Callahan, the Dirtiest Cop Ever_**

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"Dirty Harry." That's what they always nicknamed him. He was nothing like the police officers of Lytton. He always got the dirty jobs of arresting the worst criminals in San Francisco. The thing was, he wasn't much into arresting his suspects; he preferred to "blow your head clean off" with his formidable .44 Magnum handgun, and many criminals had learned that the hard way, and not lived to tell about it.

One can never forget his most infamous case, the case against the psychopathic killer, Scorpio, who got a thrill out of murdering people at random. Dirty Harry never handled the job according to the rules. He defied the authorities that tried to keep him in check, and even got fed up with the mayor himself for giving in to Scorpio's ransom demands repeatedly. And in the end, even Scorpio received the harshest lesson in staring down the barrel of Harry's handgun and still trying to shoot back. Perhaps there's a lesson there for all crooks, as well as weak-willed authorities.


	10. Lloyd Pratt in Constant Danger

**_Lloyd Pratt in Constant Danger_**

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Narcotics detective Lloyd Pratt certainly went through a lot more trouble than a cop normally should have. Goodness knew that he was great, in fact, some people thought he was a better officer than even Sonny Bonds, including Bonds himself. Lloyd won a Medal of Valor for stopping a dangerous suspect while moderately wounded _and_ coming to the aid of a critically wounded fellow officer. He also saved a small child from the wreck of a burning vehicle and performed CPR on a 45-year-old man who had received a heart attack. He was amazing.

What the good citizens didn't know, and most cops didn't either, was that the pressure of being a famous police officer was getting to him, and he was consuming drugs on-duty. Sonny, however, came to his rescue when he heard about it, and Lloyd Pratt promised to take a leave of absence until he could be cured. So his reputation was saved by his friend before he could ruin it.


	11. Matt Cordell, Maniac Cop

**_Matt Cordell, Maniac Cop_**

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Now here was something you don't see every day: a maniacal, undead cop in uniform, roaming around, killing people in gruesome ways, seeking vengeance for an injustice placed upon him when he was a normal man. Hardly a role model, Officer Matt Cordell was nonetheless a well respected cop when he was normal, arresting, charging, and taking out bad guys with a flair for the unconventional. Like Dirty Harry, however, he disregarded many of the rules, and this got him in trouble with his superior officers.

Unfortunately, his superiors were more corrupt than he ever was, and framed him for things he didn't do in order to land him in prison. Cordell did not forget this, not even after some thugs he once arrested murdered him in the prison showers, and started his own vendetta of justice after coming back from the dead. But despite his random killings and savagery, he was honored after his next "death" at his burial for his goodness as a normal cop, and every police officer knew they had to fight the "maniac cop" within themselves to avoid becoming another Matt Cordell. Even Lytton's police knew this.


	12. Fletcher Hall and his Pistachio

**_Fletcher Hall and his Pistachio_**

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As one of the captains of Homicide division, both of whom, by the way, were big and black, Captain Fletcher Hall was quite imposing. He was the kind of man who made his subordinates want to behave themselves, or else. As a result, the Homicide unit was extremely well-behaved. But Fletcher was more than just scary. He was smart, and cunning, and he had used these talents to his advantage while on the Slinkard Pington case years ago. He was famous for bringing that slick mass murderer in, and the other detectives said he always deserved to be Homicide captain.

Perhaps he was more well known, though, for his excessive consumption of ice cream, both on- and off-duty. His obsession with ice cream (pistachio was his favorite flavor) meant that he hadn't passed his physical perfectly. Other officers hoped he didn't get a heart attack as a result, particularly while on-duty, but he didn't seem too worried; he just continued to lick his pistachio and crunch his cone calmly.


	13. Jack Cobb's Pain

**_Jack Cobb's Pain_**

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Officer Jack Cobb was a good man. He had pulled over his share of offenders and arrested his share of drunks and troublemakers over the course of his career. He had many friends within the police force, and they all supported him enthusiastically.

But he wasn't a happy man. For some time, he had had a drinking problem, and it was sometimes a struggle for him to remain sober while on duty. It also affected his family life, straining his relationship with his wife. Worst of all, though, his teenaged daughter, Kathy Cobb, had been doing drugs, and kept right on doing them until she OD'd one day, and died in a coma. Jack took it so hard, he chose to retire from the police force early in order to protect the rest of his family. He remained friends with most of the other officers, but his days of policing Lytton were over.


	14. Reckless Martin Riggs

**_Reckless Martin Riggs_**

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If there ever was the ultimate loose cannon cop, Sergeant Martin Riggs was him. As a man who had gone through a tough life, losing loved ones, facing down brutal killers, and desiring suicide on several occasions, he managed to hide it behind a facade of wisecracks and wild actions as a police detective. His partner, sensible family man Roger Murtaugh, though, was eventually willing to give him a friendship that pulled him out of his funk and made him a good cop again.

Indeed, Riggs' reckless ways made him a little unpopular with his other police brethren, but like other macho cops, he got results, and he metered out justice like a pro, even if his methods weren't very professional. He and Murtaugh made a good team, and pulled off their stunts with humor and wit. Riggs was a little like Lytton Officer Jack Cobb, except Riggs was able to remain focused on his vocation, while Jack couldn't.


	15. Steve Jones the Poet

**_Steve Jones the Poet_**

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Stephen Jones was one flippant cop. He was a lover of Carol Grounds' coffee, which he drank as often as he could. He joked about wanting to lose his virginity without first marrying. And he was a rather bad poet. He wrote a poem once that led up to doing a foot beat down by the river, and it rhymed. Sonny complimented him to his face, but behind his back, Sonny called it terrible.

Still, he had done some commendable actions of his own as well. He had once been chasing a stolen vehicle driven by the thief himself down a highway. The car lost control on the highway and span out of control down an off ramp. Steve stopped the chase by ramming into it at low speed to stop it, and the driver was apprehended. Many people were shaken up by the experience, especially the suspect and Steve, but Steve kept a level head the whole time, and he was congratulated like any other cop who had done something good would be.


	16. Laura Watts, Nonsense or No-Nonsense?

**_Laura Watts, Nonsense or No-Nonsense?_**

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She was quite a pretty young lady, that Laura Watts. Part time Traffic cop, part time Narcotics detective, Laura was still a very serious woman who reportedly wanted no-nonsense from her fellow officers and did everything by the book.

As Sonny's partner during the Hoffman case and the operation against the Death Angel, she was invaluable as an assistant in cracking down on the drug-dealing in Lytton. Her most commendable actions, however, might have taken place years before the coming of the Death Angel. One day, there was unusually heavy rain in Lytton, causing mud slides and road closures. While doing Traffic duty, Officer Watts encountered a place where commuter traffic stopped, and very professionally directed traffic to an alternate route by which to escape the mud slides. Many people admired her for it. However, she was also a secret prankster known as the "Gremlin" who antagonized Traffic Sgt. Dooley with embarrassing gags, and eventually had to apologize.

Was she truly no-nonsense, or a teaser at heart? You decide.


	17. Joe Friday Carried a Badge

**_Joe Friday Carried a Badge_**

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Sergeant Joe Friday of Los Angeles was a model police officer. By-the-book, clever, and intelligent, he and his partner, Bill Gannon, solved cases with the flair of detectives who meant business, but were always forthright gentlemen and treated even the most dangerous of suspects with calmness and respect. Periodically transferred from one unit to another, Sergeant Friday could almost be a male dead-ringer for Lytton's Narcotics Detective Laura Watts, except that Friday never played any pranks on his superiors.

Indeed, not every case Friday and Gannon worked on had a happy outcome. They could never forget the death of a 19 year old boy by drugs, particularly after he had overcome his previous addiction to them three years earlier. But they did serve and protect with professionalism, and their captain couldn't be prouder of his finest police detectives.


	18. James Simpson the Cool Dude

**_James Simpson the Cool Dude_**

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This Burglary detective worked hard in his unit, but he privately hoped that someday, he would be reassigned to Homicide. His fellow male officers thought he was one heck of a cool cop, and the females, even those that were married, believed he was very handsome, making him a popular "dude" just to look at.

He was also popular for helping a team called "B" sector team reduce the number of traffic accidents on the streets by 20% of what they were the previous year. Even so, he was also criticized for bad conduct, namely, yelling abusively at a child abuser and spitting in his face mockingly. He was reprimanded by his superiors, and some of the purer cops on the force didn't like his conduct either, but some others thought that he showed real spirit when he defied that scoundrel. James Simpson himself, though, wouldn't talk much about the topic, and people wondered if it haunted him.


	19. Keith Robinson and his Habits

**_Keith Robinson and his Habits_**

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Keith was a cop known for doing several activities that were a little unorthodox for a law enforcement officer. He was laid back and easygoing, never letting his work interfere with his relaxation. He often wisecracked on the job, even in tense situations, and worst of all, he was a heavy cigarette smoker. When he sat at his desk in the Homicide office, the room filled with so much smoke, the other detectives were amazed their own health wasn't deteriorating from second-hand smoke.

Nonetheless, Keith was a good, professional police officer, and it showed in his actions. He had once done excellent traffic management on the Lytton Freeway when a chain reaction collision caused a massive backup in traffic. He redirected the people and their cars like a pro, and the freeway was cleared. He also served well as Sonny Bonds' partner in the Jessie Bains case, helping Sonny get through the hard times as well as searching for clues.

Keith Robinson was almost the ideal police officer. Now if only he could give up his vices...


	20. Devon the Half-Cop

**_Devon the Half-Cop_**

* * *

They say a kid can never be a cop. But that didn't stop little Devon Butler from temporarily joining the Tampa Police Force when he witnessed a crime. He adored the police, wanting to be one himself, and he watched all the cop shows and movies he could find as well as courtroom shows to know all about courtroom lingo and police procedures. He even played cops and robbers with a squirt gun at school. He got partnered with veteran cop Nick McKenna, and together, this cop and a half methodically bumbled their way to catching the criminal Devon saw commit the crime.

Even the Lytton Police Department could not boast of something like this kid who went around with handcuffs, a notebook and ticket book, and a policeman's badge. Devon showed a side of law enforcement that can only be seen in a little child: a person who loved to protect and serve, while keeping his innocence and sense of fun and play with him.

If only more cops could show his enthusiasm for being a cop and enjoying every minute of it.


	21. Morris Fudley's Full of Hot Water

**_Morris Fudley's Full of Hot Water_**

* * *

He was such a character, that Officer Morris Fudley. All he seemed to care about, even when on-duty, was his showers in the Police Station's locker room. He was a cop with a poor salary, unable to afford to shower at home, and so he took his beloved bathings in the free police showers. Some of his fellow officers attributed it to his sloth, as well as his love for warm water. Consistently late for briefings, he never got the message that he had to shape up or ship out.

Still, when he _did_ do his job, he did it well. At least, he was an average cop, not the type that the public would gossip about the heroics of, but still good enough to do his part to serve and protect. He pulled over his share of traffic violators and arrested many drunk drivers, and once, he had saved the day in a shootout between Jack Cobb and three hoodlums who were found gambling illegally. But he went so overboard with his free time his brother officers were amazed he wasn't fired.

Well, that's life, they say.


	22. Police Squad In Naked Color

**_POLICE SQUAD IN NAKED COLOR_**

* * *

Who was the dumbest cop ever? Some might say Chief Clancy Wiggum. But the most memorable dumb cop with his own story was probably Lieutenant Frank Drebin of Police Squad. A man with a half-gold, half-flint heart and a feather brain, Frank was as bungling as cops ever came. Misunderstanding catch phrases and police terminology, accidentally abusing his partner and friend, Nordberg, and stumbling into the worst possible public situations at bad times, one would think such a man would be fired swiftly.

And yet, he was considered a good cop by many, sometimes even by victims of his bungling stupidity. Lieutenant Drebin apprehended (or killed) many crooks, usually in the most weird ways, and stopped an assassination on the Queen of England's life. He even helped bring about an environmental cause by stopping the man determined to disrupt it, and saved the Academy Awards from being bombed. Now, where would Lytton be if they had an officer like Frank? Safe and sound, but also noisy and chaotic, probably.


	23. Calvin Haines, the Old and Strong

**_Calvin Haines, the Old and Strong_**

* * *

This old veteran of over forty years on the Lytton Police Force amazed his brethren in the LPD many times. He was getting a little old for a street cop, but he refused to retire just yet. His strength and endurance was almost as good as it was when he joined the Force as a rookie, and several suspects had underestimated him when they tried to run from him while resisting arrest. He had one strong and sharp will, even for a cop.

One day in 1977, when he was in his 40's, a man was harassing fishermen in Cotton Cove, and he was called there to investigate. The man was naked, and high on PCP, and when Calvin arrived on the scene, the suspect snatched and tore off his badge and threw it into the river. Shortly afterwards, Calvin was able to nab and cuff the suspect, and with little problem. Once again, his fellow officers held him in awe for his strength and courage.

His badge was never found, until Sonny Bonds spotted it in the river while investigating the Jessie Bains case underwater. It had too much algae growing on it to be worth wearing anymore, but fortunately, Calvin had a new badge by then.


	24. Joe Walters, Officer of the Year

**_Joe Walters, Officer of the Year_**

* * *

Technically, Joe Walters lost the "Officer of the Year" award to rival nominee Sonny Bonds, who had defeated the drug dealing and gambling business of the Death Angel. However, in some ways, Joe was a better officer than even Sonny was. Joe had written countless tickets for speeders, jaywalkers, red light-runners, and other traffic violators, something that Sonny was often behind on. He had safely gotten many drunk drivers off the streets, too, and before Sonny got involved with Bains and his hit-man, Jason Taselli, Joe had brought in to jail many independent drug dealers, as well as confiscating plenty of dope from kids and punks. He had even saved a woman once from being raped just in time, and was forced to gun down the would-be rapist.

Joe Walters may not have made as outstanding a bust as Sonny Bonds did with the Death Angel and his cohorts, but he did enough small good deeds to count as one of the best, too.


	25. The Future of Law Enforcement

**_THE FUTURE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT_**

* * *

Alex Murphy was one-of-a-kind in Old Detroit. Whereas most of his fellow officers on the Force were cynics who preferred going on strike to protecting and serving, his pure heart and sense of duty gave him the strength to stand up to any threat. He became even more "human" after his transformation into Robocop. With help from his partner, Anne Lewis, he overcame his demons and defeated the seedy killers who "murdered" him, and was ready to accept his new life as a cyborg.

Nothing could stop Murphy/Robocop. Nothing could make him become disillusioned with his duty to serve and protect. As an officer with a determination to see all crime ended in Detroit, as well as his impressive armor, Auto 9 gun, and fighting reflexes, no cop or crook was his match. The LPD held him in such awe, they thought every city in the country needed at least one Robocop like him, including Lytton.


End file.
